Demise of IE6
18. The only thing that would make you happier than the demise of IE6 is world peace.
No need for more words.
Archive for May, 2008
I Don’t Think So
“We are encouraging site administrators to get their sites ready now for broad adoption of Internet Explorer 8, as there will be a beta release in the third quarter of this year targeted for all consumers.” Yeah, like this happened with IE7 who still trails behind IE6, unless of course they forced the update on everybody in which case: “a call to action for site owners to ensure their content will continue to display seamlessly in Internet Explorer 8.”
Wow Microsoft, like I didn’t waste enough time to make my websites work in your stupid browsers, now I have to go back to all of them so I can make them work in your stupid IE8 release?
Seriously, I don’t think so. Maybe the ” ideal of write once, run anywhere” should’ve been considered early in the game? Some time between IE5 and IE6.
IE8 Is Among Us And So Is The Meta Tag
Yesterday Microsoft posted on it’s support page a solution for the following problem: “Your Web site may not display correctly in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1,” which has the following symptoms:
- Misaligned Web page layout
- Overlapping text or images
- JavaScript functionality issues and errors
There solution is simple. First, you need to verify that this is a IE8 specific problem by:
- Opening IE8
- Clicking the emulate IE7 button (which is not that great of an IE7 emulator)
- Close IE8
- Open IE8 back up.
- Verify that the emulate IE7 button is checked
- Navigate to the Website in question
- Check to see if the problems are gone.
- Click the emulate IE7 button
- Close IE8
- Open IE8
- Verify that the emulate IE7 button is not checked
- Navigate to the Website in question
- Check to see if the problems are there again
In as little as 13 easy steps you can be certain that IE8 sucks and is the cause of your Websites not displaying correctly.
I know Microsoft only posts 6 steps but if you read carefully they cram two, three or four in one line to make it seem as 6 when it is really 13.
But, that’s ok. The steps are simple enough and at least they offer us a way to test in two of their browsers with out the need of different computers or the Multiple IE program. The problem is the solution they give for this issue: “To resolve these issues, Web site owners and administrators can add a meta-tag that tells Internet Explorer 8 to display an entire site or a specific page like Internet Explorer 7.” In other words: “Call your Web Developer and ask for a quote for adding a Meta Tag to all the pages in your Website. Please remember that your Web Developer may be going insane with several similar requests by all his clients who are experiencing the same problem.”
Some may say that I shouldn’t be complaining since this may result in more money thrown my way just to add a simple meta tag in a bunch of pages. Although I won’t argue that some more money may come my way, I already made clear the scenario most likely to happen on this post: More on the Meta Nightmare. So you don’t have to click on the link I’ll summarize it here for you: Some clients might understand and be ok with paying to get their websites updated for IE8 although they might not understand why a newer browser doesn’t work with their current website. Others, may need a little bit more time (time = money) for us to explain why this needs to happen and why they need to pay us and may decide to do it, keep the website as it is or, the one I’m scared about, go somewhere else thinking that their web developer doesn’t know what he’s doing since Microsoft is a Multi Billion dollar company and they must know what they are doing.
But let’s end the post in an optimistic mode. If this happens, if I loose a client because of this meta tag I’m pretty sure I could sue Microsoft for damages and then a lot of money may be thrown my way. Maybe I should revise my posts and praise the meta tag. Who knows, right?
I Wouldn’t Go As Far As Shooting, But He Makes A Point
I think I finally found a Website that expresses as much hatred for Microsoft and their IE browsers as we do here at Stupid IE.
Andrew at Floor44.co.uk have written a very interesting post giving even more reasons to shot kill throw pies in the faces of all Microsoft developers for the rest of their existence.
In the post, Andrew has an image of the compatibility table for CSS3 and folks, let me tell you something: It i not looking good. I really don’t get all the hype of some people about IE8 when it is actually worse, at least as far as css selectors go, than IE7. I mean, and I said this more than twice before, shouldn’t an update or a new version be better than the previous one?
Oh Microsoft, really I don’t condone shooting people or killing them by any other means. But seriously Microsoft, you are pushing a lot of people. Maybe is just time to sue.
Firefox Release Candidate
I’ve been testing the release candidate for Firefox and all I can say is: This is how a Beta should be.
For all of you that went through the nightmare of testing the IE8 Beta, you already know all the bugs it had and how it broke, to a point, almost every website you went to not to mention Microsoft updates.
I might be wrong, after all I’m not a multi billion dollar company. But I seem to like the idea of getting new versions of products that work better than their predecessor instead of the other way around. Yes, yes I know, it is only a beta. But why can’t it be more firefox-type beta? Wouldn’t the wold be a better place if we all took the firefox approach to things? I really believe so.
Catastrophic
I know is hard to account for every possible error on a piece of widely used software. But when you go to the extent of alerting about “Catastrophic” errors you should sit down and rethink your coding goals.
http://www.shipmentoffail.com/fails/2008/03/catastrophic-failure/
Nothing New
I’ve been searching and receiving google alerts for the last couple of days but so far everybody ius experiencing the same troubles with XPSP3, so I’ve decided to lay low for a while until some new developments with IE8 occur
In the meantime I’m going to start searching for news on firefox’s new release as well as more pictures of hot girls wearing some firefox apparel. I know, this is really geeky but what else can we do?
More on the IE8 vs XPSP3
As it turns out, is not only IE8 Beta who’s having a problem with the update. IE7 has join it as well. Yes, I know is not a mayor issue and all that will happen, at least until now, is that you won’t be able to uninstall Ie7 or Ie8 to revert back to IE6.
I have to say that this may have been a good thing and if I were Microsoft I wouldn’t say anything to Ie7 users, this way, I would’ve force them to stay on IE7 and dump the crappy IE6. As a matter of fact I would’ve included IE7 by default on the update so that people started loosing the crappy IE6. But I’m not Microsoft so I’m not that smart.
XPSP3 Update & IE8 Beta
Seriously, WTF? Apparently the new XP Update is out which should fix some stuff, and hopefully don’t break others. But, if you installed IE8 Beta then you will not get this update because apparently Microsoft is not compatible with Microsoft (crazy Vista error anyone?).
It appears that if you install this update, which you won’t get automatically if you have IE8 installed, you won’t be able to uninstall IE8. It seems you need to uninstall IE8 first, then get the update and then install IE8 Beta again.
I mean, how hard is it to make your products compatible with, well… your products??
Update on IE7 Emulate button
Update: It still doesn’t work correctly so god knows what we are going to expect with IE8 multi running mode that is supposed to not break websites that where previously working with IE7.
Since I hadn’t tested this myself I couldn’t assure the button was not working correctly. But today I ran into this post which has a nice screen shot of the problem. You can see for yourself how the IE7 emulate button is pressed.
